Dear Friends,
With Passover right around the corner, I find myself thinking not only about the story we tell each year at our Seder, but also about the characters within it and what they reveal about us.
This year in particular, I find myself thinking about Pharaoh. But not as the villain in an ancient story. Rather, as a deeply human figure whose flaws are, in many ways, strikingly familiar. That is especially true when it comes to the Torah’s focus on Pharaoh’s heart.
In our sacred text we are told:“ויחזק פרעה את לבו” — Pharaoh hardened his own heart.
And then, only a short time later:“ויחזק ה’ את לב פרעה” — God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
For generations, commentators have struggled with that shift. How can Pharaoh be held accountable if God is the one hardening his heart?
But many of our sages noticed something subtle and profoundly insightful. The hardening does not begin with God. It begins with Pharaoh.
At first, Pharaoh is the one who refuses to listen. He is the one who ignores Moses. He is the one who doubles down, who chooses power over compassion, and who increases suffering rather than alleviating it.
It begins as a series of choices. But over time, something changes.
What begins as a choice becomes a pattern.
And that pattern becomes a habit.
And that habit becomes a way of being.
Pharaoh’s heart becomes so rigid, so entrenched, that he can no longer hear anything that challenges him. Even as his world collapses around him, he cannot change.
And that is the moment when the Torah’s language shifts. Not because God is removing Pharaoh’s free will in some arbitrary way, but because Pharaoh has, over time, surrendered it himself. The story, in other words, is not about a single decision. It is about what happens when we make the same decision over and over again until we are no longer capable of choosing differently.
And that is why this story is not really about Pharaoh. It is about us.Because we are living in a moment when it has become increasingly easy, and increasingly normalized, to harden our hearts.
We are surrounded by constant noise, constant opinion, and constant outrage. And too often, the more we encounter perspectives that challenge us, the more instinctively we push back. We defend. We dig in. We curate our world so that we hear only what we already believe.
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, something happens. We stop listening. Not all at once. Not consciously. But gradually. Until what once was a choice becomes our norm.
Our tradition warns us about this in subtle but powerful ways. The Torah does not simply condemn Pharaoh for his cruelty. It shows us his process. It allows us to watch, step by step, how a human being becomes incapable of change.
And in doing so, it holds up a mirror. Because the danger is not only that there are Pharaohs in the world. The danger is that there is a little bit of Pharaoh in each of us.
The Talmud teaches:“אלו ואלו דברי אלוהים חיים” — These and these are the words of the living God.
It is a remarkable idea. The rabbis argue passionately, even sharply, and yet they insist that multiple perspectives can each carry a measure of truth.
But that idea only works if we remain open to hearing one another. And that may be the spiritual work of this moment. To stand firmly for what we believe because integrity demands that we do. But at the very same time, to guard against the hardening of our own hearts by asking ourselves:
Am I still capable of listening?Am I still open to being challenged?Am I still able to recognize complexity or have I reduced everything to certainty and simplicity?
Because as Pharaoh teaches us, once the heart hardens, growth becomes almost impossible. And without growth, there can be no redemption.
As we prepare to sit at our Seder tables, often with people who see the world differently than we do, this challenge becomes very real.
It is easy to dismiss.
It is easy to label.
It is easy to shut down.
But the Haggadah calls us to something else. It calls us into conversation. And conversation only works if our hearts remain soft enough to hear one another. If we can do that . . . if we can hold our convictions while remaining open, if we can engage without entrenching, if we can listen without immediately rejecting . . . then we are doing something deeply countercultural.
And deeply Jewish.
Because the opposite of Pharaoh is not simply Moses. The opposite of Pharaoh is a heart that remains open. A heart that can still be moved. A heart that is still capable of change.
And perhaps that is one of the freedoms Passover celebrates.
Not only freedom from what oppresses us but freedom from the rigidity that can take hold within us. The freedom to remain open. The freedom to remain human.
Shabbat Shalom,Rabbi Daniel Cohen